The Beer Hall Putsch
by Loveedith
Summary: What happened to Michael Gregson after he left for Germany in mid 1922 until he was killed in the Beer Hall Putsch in November 1923? This is the only remotely plausible explanation I have managed to think up.


AN: What happened to Gregson after he left for Germany in mid 1922 until he was killed in the "Beer Hall Putsch" in November 1923? I'm trying to give it all a plausible explanation here. (I think.)

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><p>Michael Gregson was worried.<p>

He knew he was going to do something very dangerous, but he also knew that if he succeeded it would make him famous. He was going to make his best series of newspaper articles ever. Perhaps the best one anyone had ever written. That was something he had always dreamed of, a real scoop, as the Americans called it.

He was going to live together with a German group, live with them and get to know all about them. His informer had told him they were very likely to be famous all through the world later on, but now it was just a small, rather obscure gathering of people called the Brownshirts.

"You have to be careful", his informer had told him. "These people are no angels."

"How come they accept to take me in like this?" Gregson had wondered.

"Oh, they want publicity. They want that more than anything else. And I have led them to believe you are all in favour of their opinions. They think that after you have spent some time with them you will be able to spread their beliefs in the English press. However, only a few of them will know who you really are. We will have to make some arrangements so it will seem that you have disappeared, though. You have to be ready to spend at least a year with them without ever contacting anyone in Britain."

...

Gregson felt a little bad about how he had treated Lady Edith Crawley. He had told her that he was going to Germany to become a German citizen and get a divorce, but that wasn't his reason for going to Munich. Nor was it that he was going to write a novel, which he had also told her. Perhaps he would do both these two things later on, so it wasn't really lies, but it wasn't the whole thruth either. But it was of utter importance that as few people as possible knew about his whereabouts. If he got caught out his whole mission would fail. Or worse still - he might even get killed.

Well - at least he had put Edith in charge of his property and his business while he was away. He had also named her his main heir if he should die. He had only put away a small yearly allowance that would go to his wife, enough to keep her in the asylum plus a little extra pocket-money that she wouldn't know how to use.

After all, they had no children so he could do what he liked with his money.

Now that he sat on the train to Munich he wondered about exactly that. Children - or rather a child. He had got carried away last night with Edith, afraid of taking out the contraceptive he had prepared for the occasion. It had taken so long to persuade her to sleep with him, he hadn't dared to interrupt it all for putting on a thing like that. Perhaps it would have made her change her mind again.

But now he was worried. What if she had got pregnant? He knew he was about to disappear without a trace for at least a year. If Edith was pregnant it would be very hard on her until he returned. Although he would very much like to have a child, the childlessness had been the first major disappointment of his marriage.

...

When he arrived in Munich, Michael Gregson had acted exactly as he had been instructed. He had checked into his hotel and after a few hours he had gone out for a walk in the city. He had met some Brownshirts at the exact place they had agreed on, and played out their little comedy, they being outrageous and him pretending to answer back. He had got some real blows from a couple of them, it just couldn't be avoided, before they dragged him into a backstreet and then into a doorway and up into a small apartment.

When Michael Gregson emerged from the apartment he wasn't the same man any longer. He was now one of the Brownshirts, his hair had been cut short and dyed black and someone had given him a small moustache that didn't look less real than that of the leader of those men, a certain Adolph Hitler. And he had an authentic black eye, which wasn't unusual among those men. He was now called Adam Svensson and a Swedish citizen, he couldn't get away with being from Austria, his German was fairly good but not perfect.

He was feeling elated. This was going to be so interesting. Changing name and circumstances was a great adventure, something few people were able to do at his age. By now only the four people who had helped him to change knew who he really was.

...

By the beginning of November 1923 Michael Gregson was sick of it all. This had started as an adventure, but he had gradually come to realise how dangerous these people were. He had argued against them at times, but only a little, saying that it was unrealistic to take over Germany. Not that it was wrong, only that it might fail. But he hadn't dared to say too much, he had been living as a Nazi for more than a year now, feeling more and more depressed.

Yes - he probably had enough material for a series of articles now - but he really didn't know how to go about it to get his real identity back and get home to England. His informer hadn't made any plans for his escape, after all they hadn't known how long it would take for him to get to know all he wanted to write about. But by now he didn't dare to tell anyone about who he was, he knew how dangerous these people were. Yes, he could get onto a train, but he didn't have his passport any longer. He would be stopped at the border. Besides - he didn't have any money, the inflation in Germany hade made what little German money he had brought worthless. He had to rely on his German hosts.

...

So when the trouble started on November 8, Gregson went along to the beer hall. There he listened to Hitler's speeches, and afterwards he took part in all the commotion that followed.

In the confusion during the night after the meeting at the beer hall suddenly a man in front of him turned around, pointing his gun at him.

"I have had my eyes on you for a long time, Svensson", the man said contemptibly in German. "You are really not a bit with us, are you? I think you are a traitor."

Those were the very last words Michael Gregson heard.

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><p>AN: Thank you for reading! I would like to hear what you think about the story - please review! It is a little different from what I usually write, especially since I made Michael Gregson rather nice here.<p> 


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